


The More I Heal The Worse It Hurts

by LLReid



Category: Reigning Passions (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alchemy, Altadellys, Assassination Attempt(s), Assassination Plot(s), F/F, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Lysende, Magic, Royalty, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22948648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Xenia cares for her Queen after a failed assassination attempt.Fic inspired by the song ‘Dynasty’ by Miia.~~~~~Red hair was like silk between Xenia’s fingers as she slowly ran her fingers through the length of it. It felt unbearably childish and silly to say that she couldn’t bear to lose her. Xenia had lost so much already and the Queen was not an object capable of being possessed. But to the spy, she was light. Her entrance into her life had conjured nothing but the brightest of lights, and losing the light of her heart would undoubtedly plunge her straight back into darkness. She’d never say so out loud, but she didn’t think she had it in her to claw herself out of it again.
Relationships: Xenia of the Autumn/Lyrei Ararieth, Xenia/Main Character (Reigning Passions)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 75





	The More I Heal The Worse It Hurts

To crown her was to kill her, the anxious voice in Xenia’s mind had screamed, and she had ignored it. Foolishly and impudently, she had ignored it, and now her precious Lyrei was fighting to survive a cowardly assassination attempt. Now, not only was all of Lysende holding their breath, but Xenia felt an all too familiar ache in her chest that threatened to pull her back into the darkness she’d had to drag herself out of on her hands and knees.

Guilt accretes. It builds and builds and builds, whittling stairways and spires and palaces and cities in the heart until a person can carry a world of hopelessness inside them. Especially the guilt that one misplaces on themselves. Xenia’s guilt was building a universe inside of her. It was her job to prevent incidents like this from happening. Whilst she may not have slipped poison into the Queen’s wine glass, she felt like she was the only one to blame.

There was so much Xenia wanted to say to her. She could feel the words scrabbling at the clasps of her thoughts, eager to be known. Freed. But she knelt at her side, stony-faced and entirely impassive, remembering the scruffy girl she had found in the furthest backwater of the Winter Wilds — the one who let her shoulders drop when she thought no one was looking, the one who fought every day when she thought that no one noticed. The one who had given Xenia as good as she got, in every way. 

In the Wilds and the Court, the girl had learned to guard herself. Weakness was a privilege given to neither orphans or queens. It divided, snipped out secrets and gave every sliver power of you. She didn’t have parts to spare. The people of Lysende called her their Jewel, and maybe she was like one. Not a cold thing wearing a hundred faces, like facets on a gemstone. Sparkling and precious.

She deserved far more than this.

The day had dawned perfectly bright and clear and had been well on its way to being entirely mundane and uneventful. That in itself should have been her very first warning that something was amiss. The world has a tendency to trick people beneath the cover of blue skies and sunny afternoons. It likes to make a day feel as bright and lazy as sun-warmed honey dripping down the edges of a glass jar as it waits until your guard is down and your attention focused elsewhere.

And that is precisely when it strikes.

For her whole life she had wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in her bones. She had always wanted what others had named ‘the impossible’, which had always made it that much easier to push out of her mind... until the impossible had come along and upended all she knew, only to be prematurely snatched from her grasp. It had happened once before with Valerian. And if the court doctors and Gideon’s faces were anything to go by, it was very likely about to happen again.

“You should get some rest, Xenia,” Lyrei croaked, her voice hoarse and paper thin. When they’d first brought her to her bedroom she’d made a point of making her desire to have Xenia at her side unspeakably clear, clinging to her hand and going as far as to actually order anyone who tried to separate them to stop. The bedroom was full of court doctors, anxious ladies in waiting, Gideon, Amara, and Ruelle, but they were all hanging back unless moving closer to her was necessary. Xenia was the only one the true Red Queen would tolerate at her bedside.

“Don’t I look as lovely and demure as I always do?,” she teased. The late afternoon sunlight refracted off of crystal chandeliers and platters piled with blooms the bright colour of new blood, and flickering candles cast smoke against the mirrors, leaving the royal bedchamber a sweet smelling snarl of mist and sunsets and rose petals. She touched the ornate iron bedpost closest to her, needing to feel the cool metal beneath her fingers, needing to feel something that pushed back to remind her of her own solidity.

“The truth,” said Lyrei, opening her eyes just a crack, “is that you look neither lovely nor demure. You look like edges and thunderstorms... but I would not have you any other way.”

She chuckled, not bothering to restrain herself. She didn’t have the mental nor the physical energy to do so, and she knew their mere proximity to one another was bound to be raising more than a few eyebrows. For as long as she’d known Lyrei, they’d been careful to be exactly who everyone expected them to be, and it had worked. No one had ever looked too closely. But now... now there would be no denying that Mistress of Spies had been keeping the Queen’s bed warm for months.

“My star-touched queen. I promised you the moon for your throne and stars to wear in your hair, and I always keep my promises,” she said softly, as if she was remembering something pleasant from long ago. “You know I would break the world to give you what you want, but I’m not resting. Not now.”

“Stubborn as ever,” the redhead smiled. “What if I ordered you to rest?”

She leaned in and lowered her voice. “You know that I’m the one who dishes out the orders in this bedroom, my sweet girl.”

Lyrei’s laugh cut off into a painful sounding cough that wracked through her entire body and had her whimpering in pain as the poison and antidotes warred in her system. Seeing the girl who’d become as precious to her as her own heart in such a state was more than a little distressing, but Xenia moved to wipe the small trickle of blood that pooled in the Queen’s mouth with the handkerchief she kept on her person at all times. 

In Altadellys, wolves were everywhere. In politics vying for thrones, making merry at court functions, skulking in the streets. They cut their teeth on history and grew fat on war and death and unnecessary dramatics. She was used to it. She’d seen the lengths they’d go to. Yet, somehow, it never stopped driving her speechless. 

“Will you hold me?,” Lyrei murmured, her voice sounding as pitiful and agonised as the anguish shining in her bloodshot eyes. “I’m...cold. Very cold.”

To hell with propriety, Xenia thought, as she lay down in bed beside her and pulled her into her arms as gently as she could manage. She didn’t bother to look at the spectators on the other side of the room, they could all think whatever they liked as far as she was concerned. Lyrei needed her and she was damn well going to be there, to whatever end.

“You’re feverish,” she replied. “You may feel cold but you’re actually very warm.”

“Am I going to die?”

Xenia gulped, her eyes drifting toward the very worried medical experts watching on with wide and anxious eyes. They may have been more informed than her, but they didn’t know anything. They didn’t know Lyrei, as she did. The girl was strong. So, so strong. Xenia was no stranger to death. Death had raised her, like an older sibling. Amidst death, she had found her bearings as a woman. Surrounded by death, she had forged her identity.

The truth was, she was terrified. She used to believe that fear either numbed or nudged. Now she knew fear did neither. Fear was a key that fit every person’s hollow spaces — those very things that kept us cold at night and that place where we retreated when no one was looking — and all it could do was unlock what was already there to begin with.

“No,” she said, adamantly. “You’re going to be just fine, alright? You’re going to stay with me, aren’t you?”

“Always,” Lyrei nodded, knowing her well enough to not push the subject too much whilst Xenia was so close to breaking. 

“That’s my good girl.”

“Who did this to me?”

“Shhh, don’t you worry about that,” she cooed. “Just focus all of your energy on getting better and leave the rest to me.”

“Is that an order?”

“It’s a promise, is what it is. Whoever did this will pay, my love. I’ll see to it myself.”

For so long Xenia had been a being of endless regret. No one but Lyrei truly knew how gifted she was in the art of making all the wrong choices. Lyrei had chosen to love her, regardless of everything else. The girl was a whole fifteen spans younger than she was — which, in itself, was a terrifying thought — but she was everything that Xenia could never dream of being. She saw the good in her. She wouldn’t let Xenia resolve to be nothing but a being of regret for the rest of her life. She knew her. She knew her past... and still wanted her future.

This woman. She was... she was everything. Ruling Lysende was a strange task. In many ways, it was like balancing an illusion. The queen must separate the illusion of what people saw and the reality of its consequences, and Lyrei did a remarkably good job of playing with fate. In every way, she was a true queen. Her subjects knew her, but at the same time they didn’t — they thought that they did, and that was all that mattered. Generations from that very moment they would not remember the exact shades of blue and green dancing in her irises, the colours she favoured, or the beauty of her ginger hair beneath the midday sun. All anyone else would remember was the impression of the legendary Red Queen upon their hearts and whether she filled them with glee or grief. That was Lyrei’s immortality.

“Your majesty,” Gideon said, as he sheepishly approached the bed. “May I check your pulse?”

Lyrei stiffened. It was more than understandable that she didn’t want anyone she didn’t know well anywhere near her.

“Leave her be, Gideon,” Xenia snapped. “I am more than capable of assessing her vital signs myself.”

“Xenia—“

“If my condition deteriorates you will know soon enough.” She was doing her best to sound like every inch the wise and commanding monarch that she had come to be known as, but her efforts were in vain. When she spoke she sounded like little more than a terrified child. “I trust Xenia.”

“Your majesty—“

“Your Queen has given you an order,” Xenia interjected as firmly as she could manage, given the circumstances. Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult a task. She was deception and mystery steeped in elegance, from her sharp smile to her unsettling eyes. “You’d best follow it.”

The alchemist nodded and gave her the very same look she’d seen on his face when their resurrection of Val had gown awry. She’d known him long enough to hear the meaning behind it loud and clear. She’s frailer than you think, his eyes said. Prepare yourself for the worst, they warned. The real language of diplomacy was in the space between words.

Red hair was like silk between Xenia’s fingers as she slowly ran her fingers through the length of it. It felt unbearably childish and silly to say that she couldn’t bear to lose her. Xenia had lost so much already and the Queen was not an object capable of being possessed. But to the spy, she was light. Her entrance into her life had conjured nothing but the brightest of lights, and losing the light of her heart would undoubtedly plunge her straight back into darkness. She’d never say so out loud, but she didn’t think she had it in her to claw herself out of it again.

“I think our secret is out,” Lyrei whispered.

An amused smirk spread across Xenia’s face. As the Mistress of Spies, she knew better than any other that secrets were flimsy things that were as easily broken as promises were. It was for that very reason that they preferred to remain under the cover of darkness, concealed in the shadows of awareness. She hummed, softly, never stilling the hand that was carding through the Queen’s hair, “Undoubtedly so.”

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t—“

Xenia quieted her with a kiss between her brows. “I only ever wanted to protect you... but now I see that people finding out about us should’ve been at the very bottom of our priority list. Secrecy made no difference. You’ve been hurt, regardless.”

“I’ll make sure no one calls you the royal consort, don’t worry. You’ll still be known as the fearsome Mistress of Spies.”

Xenia laughed, softly. “There are far worse things to be known as. Being acknowledged as your consort... it wouldn’t be the most terrible thing in the world.”

Lyrei shifted, ever so slightly so that she was looking her in the eyes. Exhaustion lined each and every one of her features and she was very clearly in a great deal of pain, making her appear more like a shell of herself than the very same care-free woman who’d ignored the gaping of horrified courtiers and insisted upon eating nothing but a huge slice of chocolate cake for breakfast that very morning. Xenia’s heart clenched at the sight of her, but she smiled through her own pain... to break whilst Lyrei needed her to be strong— it would be unforgivable.

“You— I mean— That’s— unexpected.”

“You know nothing about me,” she teased, fighting the urge to laugh.

"I know your soul.” Lyrei smiled, sweetly. “That’s what matters. Everything else is an ornament.”

She placed the softest kiss on her lips and then rested her brow against hers. For the first time Xenia wanted to believe in all the things that outlasted mortal lives: the stories that had come to life in her head when she was a child, the hunger to live a meteoric life. Those were the footsteps that not even time could discover and steal and erase, because they lived too far out of its reach, in the melody of the song of blood coursing through veins and in the quiet threads that made up dreams. She wanted to hold the hope of those tales within her and follow it like a lure all the way back to the happy version of herself that she’d been that morning.

After Valerian’s death, Xenia didn’t think she would ever find true happiness again, and when she’d found it she had felt guilty for doing so. All those wasted thoughts. All that wasted time that she’d spent hating herself when she could’ve just been happy. She never dared to hope or pray for a partner who both respected and challenged her, who knew the worst there was to know about her and still managed to coax out the very best. She’d been luckier than most to find that not only once, but twice, each time in the unluckiest of places with the most stubborn and inconvenient of people. She’d already lost Val... she wasn’t prepared to lose Lyrei. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. That determination in her heart burned like an ungodly wildfire, she’d do whatever it took to keep the girl safe. No matter the cost, she’d keep her safe.

She’d built her identity on procuring the impossible — power, recognition, a future — and now magic had found her the moment she had stopped truly searching for it. It breathed life into all of those old dreams, filling her with the most terrible and painful of questions: what if?

She — more than anyone else at court — understood that sometimes the only way to take down what had destroyed you was to disguise yourself as part of it. For a while all she had wanted was to be seen as an equal to the insufferable aristocratic fools who graced the palace halls, until she had learned that she had a flair for playing the dynastic games better than they ever could. But, now, she didn’t want them to look her in the eye. She wanted them to look away, to blink harshly, as if by staring at her and Lyrei they’d stared at the sun itself. She didn’t want them standing across from her or at her side. She wanted them on their knees. 

“I’m really tired, Xenia,” Lyrei said, quietly, drawing her from her thoughts.

“Close your eyes for a moment, my love. Rest your body and your mind.”

“I’m scared.”

“There is nothing to be frightened of, I promise.”

The queen nodded her head, sheepishly, her glassy eyes becoming visibly wetter. “If I close my eyes, will we see each other again?”

Xenia’s breath arrested. Oh, how she loathed fear. She detested how it fed on her and stripped away her comfortable and carefully carved stoicism. Fear forced her to hold up the contents of her heart to the light, to drop her mask. When she spoke, her voice was small and tight, “Yes.”

Lyrei blinked. “In this life?”

“Whatever do you mean? Of course we will—“

“As children, the village elders used to tell us that if we were bad in this life then we would come back as a goat in the next. Which means that there is another life.” She didn’t look at her, focusing instead on tightly twisting the hem of her gown between her fingers. “So will you see me again before I’m a goat?”

“You’re not a bad person and you’re not dying,” she said, adamantly. “Pay those thoughts no mind, as they are the furthest thing from the truth.”

“Someone obviously thinks I’m bad enough to assassinate.” Lyrei coughed again, the painful gesture rattling her entire body as she nodded her head.

“Fools the lot of them.” With a trembling hand, she wiped the blood from her lips and drew her closer to her chest. “The world may not always see you as you would wish, or as you are. Sometimes it demands that you be so outrageous that you transcend your very skin. You are a great queen, my sweet girl. You’ve made yourself a myth and you live within it, so that you belong to no one but yourself. In doing so, you may have angered the feebleminded, but you’ve enraptured the hearts of the majority of your subjects. It is not your fault someone decided to poison you.”

The queen nodded her head and the small smile she managed to give her banished her fear and limbed the marrow of her bones with starlight, pure and bright. Her touch hummed through her blood like an aria — a song to her lonely waltz, a beginning of a long awaited promise. As a girl she had spent countless hours listening to how the pull of certain people would supposedly make the world stop. Now she knew the legends of her homeland were incorrect. The world stopped for no one. The world had just started to churn and breathe and live. In her arms, the world was a soft, pulsing and bright thing, alive with hidden angles that she had uncovered one by one. She was more than magic. It was a life turned relentless and astral. And she revelled in her.

“Perhaps you’re right. It may feel like death is waiting... but I am a queen. I will continue sitting my throne even if I have to carve a path of blood and bone. Death can wait.”

“That’s my girl,” she whispered, proudly. “Now close your eyes. I will be right here beside you when you wake.”

“Xenia?”

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

“As I love you.” Her kiss burned in her bones. And maybe it was the inherent magic of her bloodline, or perhaps it was just her mind splintering from everything that they’d gone through that day, but she would’ve sworn blindly that she tasted like sweet honey and light magic. “Always.”

\- fin.


End file.
